[Pakistan] IT books for primary students launched

["Irfan Khan" <khania@super.net.pk>]

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From:           	"Seema Javed Amin" <seema@isb.sdnpk.org>
To:             	"Comp-list" <comp-list@isb.sdnpk.org>
Date sent:      	Mon, 11 Feb 2002 10:37:52 +0500


New Century Education makes information technology easy for primary
students 
The News, By our correspondent, 11/2/2002

http://www.jang-group.com/thenews/feb2002-daily/11-02-
2002/metro/k7.htm


KARACHI: The New Century Education (NCE) launched on Sunday 'Project 
IT Series' containing books for five levels each, as a result of its 
ground-breaking efforts to acquaint primary education with the ever 
changing world of information.  

Three experts in curriculum development, in line with modern research 
in learning and teaching, wised up a large number of teachers on 
various NCE's efforts to Energise Everything at a seminar on 'IT 
Project Series'. The curriculum designer and director of NCE, Raed 
Afzal, said information technology (IT) by far is a springboard for 
the local schools, which would give them a high jump into the 21st 
century.  

Afzal said the conventional definition of literacy has been redefined 
with computer literate citizens who need IT as 'pen and paper of the 
21st century'. "Researchers believe schools without embracing IT in 
the next 10 years won't survive," he added.  

His team's efforts to produce books, based on most up-to-date 
knowledge, were frustrated with the ever-changing and minutely 
refreshing wealth of knowledge on the web, the energetic expert 
further said. "We wanted to beat IT with our new books," Raed Afzal 
maintained and added: "We could not and rather we decided to let 
children use the tools (IT) with whose help we wanted to generate 
interesting curriculum."  

Unfolding his two-year commitment toward Project IT Series, Afzal 
said the NCE assembled a team of experts from IT, language, 
psychology and curriculum designing, who extracted over 400 IT skills 
that could cover the essentials of IT and arranged them in order for 
employment at class I to V. Raed Afzal said the extracted IT skills 
were arranged in order while sticking to 'easy to difficult, simple 
to complex and known to unknown' approaches. The team designed 44 
projects for primary students to master all 400 IT skills, he added.  


Munir Ahmed Rashid, the head of NCE research unit, introduced the 
Jugnu Urdu Silsila, the first book, which he described as a sequel to 
NCE's efforts to enable primary students learn Urdu easily instead of 
fearing it. With the help of Jugnu Silsila books, students would find 
themselves 80 per cent ahead in next class, he added.  

Rashid, the author of more than 200 Urdu stories and expert on Urdu 
phonics, said the primary drop-out rate cited by the World Bank has 
been 125 per cent mainly due to a vast gap between kindergarten and 
primary class. He said pupils at pre-primary levels are taught 100 
words and 20 sentences. Rashid said the Jugnu first book on Urdu 
would make Urdu easy for class I students as it covered 
comprehension, understanding and writing in a very precise manner, 
supplemented with extensive research.  

"We want class II students not to think of how to write but what to 
write about," he explained. "We have also offered plenty of 
techniques to sharpen propensity to write more creatively while 
exploring imagination and proverbs." Shahzad Qamar, member of the NCE 
research team, briefed the audience on the '99 uses of IT in school' 
saying that the IT had come to stay in the 21st century, particularly 
at the school level. He said IT is the virtual kind of power. "Only 
knowledge empowers you to face the challenges."  

Qamar counted that the students could learn through the IT most 
difficult methods more easily. 
He said the students can also learn different writing styles through 
IT besides enhancing 
their ability to learn difficult lecture in a more interesting 
manner. "IT is the last resort 
to acquire knowledge and, therefore, power."  


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